PEDC News

BP announces Final Investment Decision for Phase 1 of the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim LNG Development

Innovative cross-border development offshore Mauritania and Senegal

BP and partners today announced that the Final Investment Decision (FID) for Phase 1 of the innovative cross-border Greater Tortue Ahmeyim development has been agreed. The decision was made following agreement between the Mauritanian and Senegalese governments and partners BP, Kosmos Energy and National Oil Companies Petrosen and SMHPM.

“Achieving sanction for the ground-breaking Greater Tortue Ahmeyim development, and at such a fast pace, is testament to the dynamic partnership working together to bring this innovative project onstream and establish a new deepwater gas value chain,” said Bernard Looney, BP’s Upstream chief executive.

"Achieving sanction for the ground-breaking Greater Tortue Ahmeyim development, and at such a fast pace, is testament to the dynamic partnership working together to bring this innovative project onstream and establish a new deepwater gas value chain,"

Bernard Looney, BP Upstream chief executive

“It represents the beginning of a multi-phase project that is expected to deliver LNG revenues and gas to Africa and beyond for decades to come. We see this as the start of a new chapter for Africa’s energy story and are honoured to work alongside our partners and the governments of Mauritania and Senegal.

“I would like to thank President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and President Macky Sall for their leadership, without which this groundbreaking project would not have been possible. Additionally, I want to thank their respective Ministers, officials and national oil companies for their commitment to work together on this project of strategic importance. Finally, we are grateful to our partner Kosmos for discovering this world class resource and for their ongoing commitment and support.”

The Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project will produce gas from an ultra-deepwater subsea system and mid-water floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, which will process the gas, removing heavier hydrocarbon components. The gas will then be transferred to a floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility at an innovative nearshore hub located on the Mauritania and Senegal maritime border. The FLNG facility is designed to provide circa 2.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum on average, with the total gas resources in the field estimated to be around 15 trillion cubic feet. The project, the first major gas project to reach FID in the basin, is planned to provide LNG for global export as well as making gas available for domestic use in both Mauritania and Senegal.

Emma Delaney, BP’s regional president for West Africa, added: “We’re committed to working with the two nations to make this development a success for both countries, the local communities who live near the project and the investor partners. We see a great deal of potential in the wider basin and Phase 1 of the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project is the first step in unlocking that for the future.”

The parties will continue to finalise agreements and obtain final regulatory and contract approvals, following which Phase 1 of the development will move into a detailed design and construction phase, with award of engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contracts. Project execution activities are expected to commence in 1Q 2019. First gas for the project is expected in 2022. Following a competitive process involving all partners, BP Gas Marketing has been selected as the sole buyer for the investor partners’ LNG offtake for Tortue Phase 1.

Notes to editors

BP entered into Mauritania and Senegal through an agreement with Kosmos Energy, announced in December 2016. Kosmos Energy discovered the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim field in 2015.

The Tortue gas field is located on the maritime border between Mauritania and Senegal and is being developed as the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project – an innovative offshore floating Liquefied Natural Gas facility. It will be the first development that establishes the basin as a world class source of gas, providing revenue for the countries, as well as a low-cost source of domestic energy.

A number of key contracts have been awarded in 2018 for front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the Phase 1 development of the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project including:

Cautionary statement

In order to utilize the ‘safe harbor’ provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the ‘PSLRA’), BP is providing the following cautionary statement. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements – that is, statements related to future, not past events and circumstances – which may relate to one or more of the financial conditions, results of operations and businesses of BP and certain of the plans and objectives of BP with respect to these items. These statements are generally, but not always, identified by the use of words such as ‘will’, ‘expects’, ‘is expected to’, ‘aims’, ‘should’, ‘may’, ‘objective’, ‘is likely to’, ‘intends’, ‘believes’, ‘anticipates’, ‘plans’, ‘we see’ or similar expressions. Actual results may differ from those expressed in such statements, depending on a variety of factors including the risk factors set forth in our most recent Annual Report and Form 20-F under “Risk factors” and in any of our more recent public reports

This document contains references to non-proved resources and production outlooks based on non-proved resources that the SEC's rules prohibit us from including in our filings with the SEC. U.S. investors are urged to consider closely the disclosures in our Form 20-F, SEC File No. 1-06262.

The Pasargad Energy Development Company, PEDC, is owned by the Pasargad Financial Group, in which one of its distinctive shareholders is Pasargad Bank, the leading Iranian private bank with a continuous high growth rate.